Business Development & Operations Associate

Stern Consulting LLC, doing business as Health Data Select

Location: Remote (U.S.-based), with occasional travel for conferences and meetings.

Position: Full-time, permanent

About Us

Health Data Select (HDS) is the search engine for health services researchers. We identify, organize, and maintain metadata about health-related datasets to make them discoverable, comparable, and easier to use.
We are a small, growing company preparing to introduce HDS to institutional beta users while continuing to expand its content and capabilities.

Learn more: healthdataselect.com

The Role

We are seeking a Business Development & Operations Associate to join our small team as we bring HDS to market and continue developing the product and growing the business.

This is an unusual opportunity for an early-career professional who wants to gain broad exposure to the different activities involved in building, operating, supporting, and growing a small technology and health-data business. The Associate will work closely with the CEO and other senior team members and will have the opportunity to participate in business development, client relationships and support, product planning, software-development coordination, data and metadata operations, business analysis, vendor relationships, and general business operations.

We are looking for someone who is interested in understanding how the entire business works, rather than developing within a narrowly defined functional specialty.

Key Responsibilities

Because HDS operates with a small core team, the Associate's responsibilities will span multiple areas and will evolve as the business develops and as the individual demonstrates the ability to assume greater responsibility.

The Associate will work closely with senior leadership on a variety of business and operational priorities. Areas of involvement are expected to include:

Business development and market relationships — helping identify and develop relationships with prospective HDS clients and users; researching organizations and contacts; participating in outreach and meetings; and helping HDS better understand the needs of health researchers and research organizations.

Client relationships, education, and support — developing a strong working knowledge of the HDS application; helping clients understand how to use HDS effectively; understanding client questions, problems, and objectives; providing or coordinating appropriate responses; and identifying recurring questions or needs that may suggest opportunities to improve the product, documentation, or client experience.

Product planning and development — participating in discussions about HDS functionality, search capabilities, user needs, new features, priorities, and future product direction. The Associate will help connect what HDS learns from clients and users with decisions about how the application should evolve.

Metadata and data operations — developing an understanding of the metadata that forms the foundation of HDS, how it is harvested, organized and classified, and how users search and interpret it. The Associate will work with HDS staff responsible for metadata curation and quality and participate in metadata processing and analyses as appropriate.

Software-development coordination — working with internal staff and outside development resources to help translate business and user needs into requirements, track development activities, and support testing and implementation.

Business analysis and decision support — working with quantitative and qualitative information to help evaluate HDS performance, client activity, business-development efforts, product usage, operational issues, and other business questions. The Associate should be comfortable working with numbers, organizing and analyzing data, identifying patterns, and communicating conclusions clearly.

Project and operational coordination — helping organize priorities, track activities and decisions, coordinate work across different areas, and ensure that important issues receive appropriate follow-through.

Vendor and partner relationships — participating in interactions with software-development firms and other outside organizations supporting HDS.

Special projects — researching and taking responsibility for emerging needs that may not fit neatly within a traditional departmental structure.

One of the Associate's first major areas of involvement will be HDS's beta program. The Associate will help the CEO and other team members identify appropriate institutional beta participants, research and contact prospective organizations, coordinate meetings and follow-up, participate in discussions with prospective and participating beta sites, and help organize and analyze what HDS learns from those interactions.

The beta program will provide the Associate with early exposure to HDS's users, prospective clients, and market while also serving as one component of a much broader introduction to the company. As HDS moves from beta into broader use, the Associate's responsibilities are expected to increasingly include relationships with and support of actual HDS clients.

An Opportunity to Learn the Business from the Ground Up

This position is intentionally designed to provide broad exposure rather than a narrow functional career path.

The Associate will have opportunities to work with people responsible for business leadership, software development and data analytics, metadata curation and quality, clients and prospective clients, and outside vendors. Over time, the Associate will develop an increasingly comprehensive understanding of how HDS's product, technology, metadata, clients, and business operations fit together.

A particularly important part of that development will be learning the HDS application itself. The Associate will become sufficiently knowledgeable about the application's functionality, search capabilities, underlying metadata, and user workflows to educate clients on effective use of the tool, understand their questions and problems, and either provide appropriate responses or determine when specialized assistance is needed.

The position will require the ability and willingness to engage in both high-level strategic thinking and detailed, routine work. On one day, the Associate might participate in a discussion about HDS's future product direction; on another, reconcile year-over-year discrepancies in data dictionaries. This breadth of involvement is central to the opportunity.

The Person We Are Looking For

We are particularly interested in someone who:

Is intellectually curious and learns new subject matter quickly.

Wants to understand how an entire business works, not simply one function within it.

Is excited by the opportunity to work in a small organization and interact directly with senior leadership.

Is comfortable with responsibilities that cross traditional job or departmental boundaries.

Is equally willing to perform detailed or routine work and contribute to important product and business decisions.

Can move comfortably between the “big picture” and the details required to execute it.

Takes ownership of assignments and follows through without requiring extensive supervision.
Is highly organized and attentive to detail.

Can take an ambiguous problem, research it, organize the relevant information, analyze alternatives, and recommend a sensible course of action.

Communicates confidently and professionally, both verbally and in writing.

Enjoys helping clients understand and effectively use a technology product and is able to listen carefully to questions, determine what a user is trying to accomplish, and communicate an appropriate response.

Is comfortable working with numbers and data, conducting analysis, identifying patterns, and drawing reasonable conclusions from quantitative and qualitative information.

Is comfortable with—or genuinely interested in learning about—databases, search, metadata, and the organization of information.

Is comfortable interacting with people in a variety of roles, including researchers, clients and prospective clients, software professionals, vendors, and senior executives.

Has an interest in technology, data, healthcare, research, business, or some combination of these areas.

Is willing to tackle unfamiliar problems and learn what is necessary to address them.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree required.

Approximately 2–5 years of relevant professional experience preferred. Exceptional candidates with somewhat different experience will be considered.

Experience in one or more of the following areas would be useful but is not required: business operations, business development, consulting, project management, customer success, software implementation, healthcare, health technology, research, or data/analytics.

Demonstrated experience taking responsibility for projects, processes, or significant assignments.

Strong research, analytical, organizational, interpersonal, and written communication skills.
Comfort working with quantitative information and using data to investigate questions and support decisions.

Comfort working with structured information and an interest in understanding how databases, metadata, and search tools are organized and used.

Proficiency with common business productivity tools, particularly spreadsheets, and an ability and willingness to learn new technologies and subject areas.

Growth Opportunity

We expect the responsibilities of this position to expand as HDS develops and as the Associate gains experience across the business.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to progressively assume ownership of projects and business functions, develop deeper relationships with HDS clients, participate more extensively in product and operational decision-making, and take on increasingly significant cross-functional responsibilities.

The objective is for the Associate to develop over time not simply as a specialist in one aspect of HDS, but as someone who understands the relationships among the market, clients, product, technology, metadata, analytics, and business operations.

For an individual who demonstrates the interest and capabilities to do so, the position offers a potential path toward substantial long-term responsibility for HDS operations and general management.

The specific pace and direction of that progression will depend on the individual's performance and interests, the needs of the company, and the continued development of HDS.

Benefits

HDS offers paid time off and an employer-funded Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA), with stipends for you to choose your own individual or family health insurance coverage.

How to Apply

We believe this position offers exceptional opportunities for someone who enjoys taking initiative, learning new things, and assuming responsibility—but recognize that it is not the right fit for everyone.

In deciding whether to apply please consider the following:

What Working Here Is Like. We are a small, highly collegial organization where employees work closely with one another and with senior leadership. We all work remotely, communicating and collaborating regularly to coordinate activities, solve problems, and make decisions. Everyone has a voice in how we operate, and employees have opportunities to influence important business and product decisions.

Working in this environment requires considerable independence, initiative, and flexibility. Dedicated administrative support and established procedures are not always available, and employees are often expected to determine how best to approach unfamiliar tasks. Responsibilities may range from routine administrative and detail-intensive work to complex analytical assignments and broader business decisions.